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Affiliations

British Conservative Party

Deane has been an active member of the British Conservative Party since 1995.

In 2004-2005 he was Chief of Staff to Tim Collins and David Cameron during their respective periods as Shadow Secretaries of State for Education.[3] Up to July 2016, he regularly wrote for the ConservativeHome website.[4]

Deane has also previously been a member of the management board of the Young Britons Foundation, the Conservative Party's official youth wing.[5][6]

In 2007 Deane was asked to assist the election campaign of Australian Liberal Party leader and Prime Minister, John Howard, who sought re-election.[3] Previous Liberal Party campaigns had been led by political strategist Lynton Crosby, who later became embroiled in a Plain Packaging political row in the UK. For more information on this controversy, visit our page on Crosby.

Deane defended Crosby's role in the affair, telling PR Week that he had worked with Crosby before and that Crosby gave the Conservative Party "focus and edge", suggesting that Crosby should take "a leave of absence" to focus wholly on the Conservative Party, and for transparency reasons, declare his agency's clients.[7]

Libertarian Groups

Additional affiliations put Deane in a network of libertarians and pro-smoking groups.

Deane was a founding director of Big Brother Watch, a right-of-centre libertarian pressure group opposing intrusions into civil liberties, and promoter of the right to smoke in public areas.

Opposing Sugar Tax

Since August 2015, Deane served on the executive board of People Against Sugar Tax (PAST), a self-styled grassroots campaign against the UK soft drinks industry levy (SDIL).[10] The SDIL, which is set to take effect in April 2018, is a levy on sugar-sweetened beverages, the revenues of which are earmarked for school breakfast clubs and school sports activities to help fight childhood obesity.[11]

Between 2015 and 2016, Deane published two articles in The Telegraph strongly opposing the SDIL.[12][13] At the centre of Deane's arguments against the SDIL, and that of PAST, is the assertion that the SDIL is a paternalistic 'nanny state' intervention which will fail to reduce obesity, and disproportionately affects the poor.[14]

PAST claims not to accept industry funding, instead financing its campaigns through donations, membership fees, and the selling of branded merchandise.[15]